2017 has been a great year for the tech enthusiast, with the return of meaningful competition in the PC space. Today, AMD announced their third quarter earnings, which beat expectations, and put the company’s ledgers back in the black in their GAAP earnings. For the quarter, AMD had revenues of $1.64 billion, compared to $1.31 billion a year ago, which is a gain of just over 25%. Operating income was $126 million, compared to a $293 million loss a year ago, and net income was $71 million, compared to a net loss of $406 million a year ago. This resulted in earnings per share of $0.07, compared to a loss per share of $0.50 in Q3 2016.

AMD Q3 2017 Financial Results (GAAP)

Q3'2017

Q2'2017

Q3'2016

Revenue

$1643M

$1220M

$1307M

Gross Margin

35%

33%

5%

Operating Income

+$126M

+$25M

-$293M

Net Income

+$71M

-$16M

-$406M

Earnings Per Share

+$0.07

-$0.02

-$0.50

AMD also provides Non-GAAP results, which can give a look at the underlying business. It’s especially important this quarter, because a year ago, AMD took a charge of $340 million for an amendment to their wafer supply agreement with GlobalFoundries. This impacted their GAAP results severely, but as a one-time charge, it can skew how the numbers look. AMD’s Non-GAAP results exclude charges for the wafer agreement, loss on debt redemption, stock based compensation, and several other factors. On a Non-GAAP basis, AMD had the same revenue of $1.64 billion, up 25%. Operating income up 121% to $155 million, and net income was up 307% to $110 million. Earnings per share came in at $0.10, up 233% from $0.03 a year ago.

AMD Q3 2017 Financial Results (Non-GAAP)

Q3'2017

Q2'2017

Q3'2016

Revenue

$1643M

$1222M

$1307M

Gross Margin

33%

33%

31%

Operating Income

+$155M

+$49M

+$70M

Net Income

+$110M

+$19M

+$27M

Earnings Per Share

+$0.10

+$0.02

+$0.03

The good news for AMD is that even on a GAAP basis, they were profitable. They’ve made some tough decisions to get here, and on a GAAP basis for this quarter, they have a gross margin of 35%, which is right where they need to be.

The Computing and Graphics segment has been a key to these numbers, with some impressive launches this year, especially on the CPU side. Revenue for this segment was up 74% to $819 million, and AMD attributes this to strong sales of both Radeon GPUs and Ryzen desktop processors. Average Selling Price (ASP) was also up significantly thanks to Ryzen sales. AMD is still undercutting Intel on price, but they don’t have to almost give things away like they did the last couple of years. ASP of GPUs was also up significantly, and the proliferation of cryptocurrency likely played a large part in that. Operating income for the segment was an impressive $70 million, compared to an operating loss of $66 million last year.

AMD Q3 2017 Computing and Graphics

Q3'2017

Q2'2017

Q3'2016

Revenue

$819M

$659M

$472M

Operating Income

+$70M

+$7M

-$66M

The Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom segment has been strong for AMD in the past, often providing the majority of the operating income for the company thanks to AMD’s success in the console market. This quarter has tended to be especially strong for the company as the console makers prepare for the holiday sales. This quarter, we’ve also got the lead-up to the Xbox One X, however revenue for this group is actually down year-over-year, about 1.3%, to $824 million. AMD attributes that to lower semi-custom SoC sales, which were mostly offset by IP related and EPYC processor revenues. We’ll have to wait and see how the console market plays out here, but it seems like it could finally be slowing down after several years of solid sales. Operating income for this segment also took a hit, down 38% to $84 million. They’ve also noted that gross margins overall were impacted by costs associated with the wafer agreements for “certain wafers purchased at another foundry” which likely means the TSMC wafers used for consoles.

AMD Q3 2017 Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom

Q3'2017

Q2'2017

Q3'2016

Revenue

$824M

$563M

$835M

Operating Income

$84M

$42M

$136M

The All Other category had a operating loss of $28 million, compared to an operating loss of $363 million a year ago, which was mostly the wafer agreement charges.

It’s great to see AMD back, offering quality products at good prices. The hard work has clearly paid off, at least for the short term, and their earnings have borne this out. Looking ahead to next quarter, AMD is expecting a revenue decrease from this quarter of about 15%, plus or minus 3%, which would be about a 26% increase from Q4 2016.

How about mobile APUs, desktop APUs, and Navi? The Ryzen/Vega based APU's have GPU performance equivalent to the GTX 1050s, and CPU performance equivalent to the Intel -U series. If they can get some good OEM designs they should move a lot of them.Reply

So your opinion of equivalent performance to the U-series Intels with 2-3x the TDP not being exactly a huge win is based on the Ryzen/Vega APUs in products that you cannot actually purchase or will be able to purchase in the short-term?

I think it will be interesting to see how AMD's mobile APU will compare with the likes of Intel's 8xxx ULV series. It is still too early to confirm what is the actual power requirement for AMD's APU, but I have to say that Intel is pushing it when they released the 4c/8t ULV processor with just 15W. I strongly believe that if you stress both CPU and GPU simultaneously, performance will take a heavy hit because of the TDP cap. Which is why I feel that there are a lot of laptop with an Intel 8xxx ULV series paired with an MX150 GPU to alleviate the power shortage on the CPU, but will add an additional 25W to the power draw. Also, I feel AMD is likely going to go with their aggressive pricing to make up for any deficit. Reply

You DO realize the TDP values include the GPU which is vastly more powerful on the AMD side, right? Also, it's worth pointing out that AMD's TDP figures are the absolute max value and Intel's are more of a "typical" value so they can make their products look more efficient than they really are.Reply

Typically AMD don't do well in the laptop segment, so I think don't think they will be able to get a lot of design wins with their mobile APUs. Having said that, the APUs are great for sub notebooks which should not cost too much but still offer decent gaming performance with its integrated graphics. Reply

What makes this hard for AMD, is the laptop/tablet market is where the industry is involving.

With technology like Thunderbolt 3, you can have those powerful expensive external CPU's like GTX 1080 in SLI mode hook up dual Large 30in 4k Monitors with docking station and still have the portability of laptop.

The integrated GPU in laptop can handle most of what you need for portable needs and if needed you can hook it up to dock with external storage and such.

Once this technology gets to important where performance between desktop and mobile cpus is the same - the need for desktop goes completely away.